Page 52 of Will Bark for Pizza
It’s the treat bag!
The treat is flying.
It missed my mouth.
Where did it go?
Oh, there it is.
Ooh, bonus treat under the seat!
EIGHTEEN
BECKETT
I’d never eatenmashed potatoes on a pizza, but today seemed as good a day as any to take a risk. Not like I could fuck up any more than I already did.
The invitation to join Joe and the appraiser at the bookstore this morning was last minute. I was always eager to learn more about the different aspects of buying and selling all types of properties, and the timing was perfect.
But he didn’t warn me Kira would be there.
If I hadn’t caught a glimpse of Husker’s white tail swishing at the back of the store, I might not have known she was there at all.
I wouldn’t have been there when she needed me.
For a woman I barely knew, it was fucking unreal how this one thought kept unraveling my best defenses.
The icy glare and utter look of betrayal etched into Kira’s expression when I confessed I was the prospective buyer would forever be seared into my brain. She stormedout of the bookstore without a backward glance, warning menotto follow.
Despite how badly I wanted to run after her and make this right.
But I couldn’t make this right.
I couldn’t go back to last night, to knock on her bedroom door after she was asleep, so we could talk. And though I tried to hang around the farm as late as possible this morning, neither she nor Husker emerged before I was due to meet the plumber at the Kniffen Street house.
I couldn’t rewind time and stop any of this from happening.
The family was pretty tight-lipped on the bookstore overall—most days it seemed like a taboo topic—but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that it would mean so much to Kira. Hell, she was an author. A bookstore from her childhood might have inspired her career. And here I was, like some greedy-ass land baron, come to destroy something special to her.
It wasn’t my decision to sell the building or liquidate the business. From the conversation between Joe and the appraiser, there was no changing Joe’s mind. I still felt like an asshole for not putting the pieces together before Kira had a fucking panic attack on the bathroom floor.
Worst of all, I couldn’t make an ounce of sense of why the urge to fix everything for a woman I’d known all of three or four days was so overpowering. Nana would cuss me out for my stupidity in all of this.
I reached for my glass of soda, and nearly drained it. Probably should save some for when the pizza arrived, but apparently, today wasn’t about making sensible decisions.
Moving to Bluebell Springs was an opportunity for a fresh start. For the first time in my adult life, I felt ready to put down roots.
And Kira Mason . . . would be gone in a few days.
None of this should matter.
I shouldn’t feel so damn guilty.
I thought saving properties from outsiders was a good way to become a part of this community. It wasn’t as though I was buying the bookstore out from under Kira or anyone in her family.
But fuck, itfeltlike I was.
“Need a refill?” the server asked, reaching for my nearly empty glass.
